Sarah Mellor is a crime author and psychological therapist based in Liverpool. She has been writing – and dreaming of being a writer - for as long as she can remember. She loves crime novels, particularly stories with lots of twists and turns, and this was her aim when starting her series of 1970s and 1980s-set books featuring Detective Leigh Borrowdale and her partner, Des Chung. Her first novel, The Departed, was set in the snowy landscape of the winter of 1979. Her second book in the series, The Silent Places, is set in riot-torn Liverpool in 1981 and was published on 26 March 2026.